Russian team banned from Paralympics, but some will compete

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Andrew Parsons, President of the International Paralympic Committee, IPC, speaks during a press conference in Bonn, western Germany, Monday, Jan. 29, 2018. Russia's team was banned from the upcoming Pyeongchang Paralympics on Monday because of its doping past. (Marius Becker/dpa via AP)

Andrew Parsons, President of the International Paralympic Committee, IPC, speaks during a press conference in Bonn, western Germany, Monday, Jan. 29, 2018. Russia's team was banned from the upcoming Pyeongchang Paralympics on Monday because of its doping past. (Marius Becker/dpa via AP)

Andrew Parsons, President of the International Paralympic Committee, IPC, speaks during a press conference in Bonn, western Germany, Monday, Jan. 29, 2018. Russia's team was banned from the upcoming Pyeongchang Paralympics on Monday because of its doping past. (Marius Becker/dpa via AP)

FILE - In this Sunday, March 16, 2014 file photo, the flame burns at the Olympic Park during the last day of the 2014 Winter Paralympics in Sochi, Russia. International Paralympic Committee says Russia's team has been banned from the upcoming Pyeongchang Paralympics because of its doping past. (AP Photo/Pavel Golovkin, File)

BONN, Germany (AP) — In a Jan. 29 story about the Russian team at the Paralympics, The Associated Press reported erroneously that the Paralympics start on March 8. They start on March 9.

A corrected version of the story is below:

Russian team banned from Paralympics, but some will compete

Russia's team has been banned from the upcoming Pyeongchang Paralympics because of its doping past

BONN, Germany (AP) — Russia was banned Monday from the upcoming Pyeongchang Paralympics because of its doping past.

However, the International Paralympic Committee said about 30-35 Russians will be allowed to compete in five sports as neutral athletes at the games, which run from March 9-18.

That mirrors the situation for next month's Olympics. The Russian team has been barred, but 169 Russians have been invited to compete.

"We are not rewarding Russia but we are allowing athletes that we believe are clean to compete under a neutral flag," IPC president Andrew Parsons said.

It will be the second Paralympics without a Russian team. The country was also excluded from the Rio de Janeiro Paralympics in 2016. Since then, there has been enough improvement to justify allowing Russians to compete as neutral athletes after extra drug testing, Parsons said.

"Although the (Russian Paralympic Committee) remains suspended they have made significant progress and we have to recognize this," Parsons said. "We now have greater confidence that the anti-doping system in Russia is no longer compromised and corrupted. We have also witnessed behavioral and cultural changes."

The Russians who will be allowed to compete must have undergone extra testing and a course of anti-drug education.

No one implicated "knowingly or unknowingly by the numerous anti-doping investigations in Russia" can take part, Parsons said.

The team of "Neutral Paralympic Athletes" will be about half the size of the Russian team that competed in Sochi in 2014.

The neutral Paralympic athletes will be allowed to compete in Alpine skiing, biathlon, cross-country skiing, snowboard and curling. They will wear uniforms without any national insignia, and fans will also be barred from waving Russian flags.

Russians had been allowed to compete as neutral athletes in some qualifying events ahead of the games before a final decision, but that came too late for Russia to qualify in hockey.

The IPC suspended Russia's membership in August 2016 over what then-IPC president Philip Craven called a "medals over morals" culture with endemic cheating.

To be reinstated, Russian officials must either accept or disprove World Anti-Doping Agency investigations which found it ran a doping program. The IPC also requires the Russian anti-doping agency to be fully reinstated by WADA, which is also demanding Russia accepts the investigations' findings.

The Russian government denies ever supporting any doping programs.

The Russian Paralympic Committee was praised for fulfilling other criteria which also required it to tighten up enforcement of drug-testing rules and distance itself from what the IPC called government "propaganda."

PARIS (AP) — The squat glass bottles held the urine of sport's greatest stars and helped confound its cheating scoundrels. The "click, click" of their locking caps being firmly screwed on was a familiar sound to athletes around the world, on early mornings when sample collectors knocked on their doors and at doping control stations at the Olympic Games, World Cups and other major events.

But now, after two decades of behind-the-scenes service to the cause of clean sport, Berlinger bottles are joining the list of victims of Russian skullduggery.

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) — South Korea's skiing federation has banned for life two male mogul skiers who competed at the Pyeongchang Olympics for harassing and assaulting two female teammates at a World Cup event last week in Japan.

GANGNEUNG, South Korea (AP) — The most talked-about athlete in the Paralympics barely plays, but who cares? The diminutive but hard-nosed reserve forward on South Korea's sled hockey team proudly admits he's just happy to be here.